Late Post Number 3 :)

Agh. We just watched Braveheart... that story is incredible. I couldn't even imagine watching a real battle.. better yet participating in one. To have a desire so strong that you would go through the torture William Wallace does at the end of the movie.. man. I'll need a lot of help from the Holy Spirit when I get in a situation like that. I barely even understand what freedom is growing up how I did. Freedom. What America was based on... what our faith in Jesus provides. Would I be willing to sacrifice everything I have.. my family, my comfort, my future.. everything.. just so that maybe one day the people after me would live and live freely?....

...Am I willing to sacrifice everything I have.. maybe just that one person would know the love of our Jealous God? Even if it was for one person..

My pride lets me think that I would never stand down to my Lord, my freedom in the face of torture or death... but I know I'm going to need a overdose of the Holy Spirit before I ever get through any intense torture like William Wallace went through in Braveheart.... or Jesus did on the in His death. So if you could, pray that I won't back down in the face of oppression because of my faith. 

Thank you all for the support.. praying and following my blog

Y'all are really really awesome

Late Post Number 2

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! I hope everyone has had an awesome day... ours has been. We had 65-75 people eat at the Villa with us; it was packed. The past two days we have been preparing all of the food. Everyone did a super good job cooking and preparing for the meal. It was really really cool to see a bunch of kids get everything together like we did. I love this group you guys... they are such a blessing to me. We had turkey, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, ...rice:) , veggies, these AMAZING home made rolls, stuffing, and then a ton of desert. Although I wasn't with my family, it was still really "homie." 

After lunch I sat and talked with one of the missionaries from Panama. He didn't really look like he wanted to talk at first.. but we ended up talking for about two hours. Then I realize about an hour after speaking my broken spanglish that he knows "80%" of English.. he kept laughing at me. :)..ayy yi yi. Randomly talking to people like that is my favorite way to learn spanish. He would correct me every time I mispronouncing a word. So I've still got a LOONNNNGGG way to go, but I've improved; that's for sure.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD AND LUKE!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU

Late Post Number1

Youth group went really well last Saturday. I'm sure I mispronounced a good portion of "Cuanto Nos Ama", but that didn't really matter. Dios was there. During youth group they played this video about these missionaries in India.. really made me put the severity of my problems in perspective. here's the link- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lMqscv6bYo 

We just went to the beach this past weekend. The place we stayed is called Punta Leona.. beautiful. There were red/rainbow colored parrots, iguanas, monkeys, toucans... lots of raccoons that begged for food. The scenery was beautiful.. I could go on and on about that, but by far my favorite part was worship on the beach. One of the Tican women that goes to my church came to the beach to watch the director's kids. She doesn't speak much english.. and we worshiped in all english songs. During one of the songs she broke down and just started weeping. I went over to her, and when she was able to speak, in her broken english she said "I needed that." It's cool that God isn't limited to speaking to a group of people through a language. 

A little later, we walked down to the shore line and the whole group stood together in arms and sang "Amazing Grace." That just broke me. Why does God want anything to do with us?? He gives us so much, knowing that He receives so little from us in return... and He's JEALOUS for our affection. The God that created life. the Heavens.. the mountains.. all of those beautiful things that we have had the privilege of seeing. THAT God wants us. 

One thing the Holy Spirit has really been convicting me of is my idol of comfort that I've made. When I was little and read "You shall have no other Gods before me" that wasn't really as convicting... We didn't have any statues of gods lying around the house. I didn't have a secret desire to be Hindu or have some celebrity I worshiped or anything. But idols are anything we love more than God. And I can definitely say I have had a lot of idols in my life. I've been super blessed with a great family, friends, houses, school... all of these things are great and God has used them a lot in my life and others, but if all of the sudden we had to sell our house how would I tolerate that? If all of my friends turned their back on me, how would I cope.. Even my family, what if I were to lose them? Am I dependent enough on God to where if I did not have these things, I would still be able to see the greater picture?

One time, I was in Africa :) ... South Africa.. with a missions team from Wesleyan (my high school) in the summer. My team and I had been working hard all morning, so when time came to serve lunch to these kids.. I was super excited because that meant food! We served out these nasty pink (pink. like.. pink pink) "hot dogs" that were about 2 and a half inches longer than any other hot dog I have ever seen. The previous days we had eaten meat sandwiches and pbj sandwiches that we had brought from our hostel, but this time we didn't. So I'm standing there serving these nasty creatures thinking "man.. I sure am blessed that I don't have to eat THAT. And then they told us to grab a plate. So I grabbed one and sat there with a couple of my new little South African friends, lost for words as they scarfed these pink pieces of rubber down their throats... then I looked down. It was time. Time to stop being such a baby. So, I took a bite. Once I saw the pink juice start to spread into the bleached-white-flour hot dog bun... I decided... why not give a child in need some food!.. haha.. It got rid of the hot dog and satisfied my guilty conscience just a little... but mostly it got rid of the hot dog. Anyways, after that day, I was just in awe. Have I ever been so hungry to the point where the look/content of the food didn't even matter? ..no. I don't even know the beginning of hunger compared to what some people in this world go through. 

pictures!

this past weekish :)

Yesterday was a longgggggg day… which is funny because mondays are our Sabbaths. Score International (the program I'm doing the GAP year through) has a campus in Coronado (a city here about 15 minutes away from where I live). It's actually the main campus for mission teams working through Score. The campus is pretty new; today we did a lot of cleaning. Since Score is a big sports ministry they had a warehouse with tons of containers of uniforms and sports equipment… all of the other boxes were full of medical supplies.. LOTSSS of medical supplies. There were about 4 girls and we had to clean all of the boxes (dust), organize, label and put them in a new warehouse. I'm hoping to go back next monday. This place is going to look sweet if we can get everything out of there and cleaned up. It was an old bar, and right now there is just a bunch of junk piled in it. There's even a room in the back where this sweet old man lives. He showed me around and gave me this knitted decoration thingy. I don't really know what it is, but I was so thankful. He's such a joyful guy. I mean, again I didn't understand too much, but I did catch that his wife died in 2002 and wasn't a believer. So that was sad, but he was so quick to claim his victory in Christ. Yeah. He's really awesome

It was about a 2 mile walk from the bus stop to Coronado, but ohh my goodness you guys it's so pretty. I didn't take my camera, but I will next time. There's just something about the way the sun sits here that makes everything seem so… real. Alive… or maybe just beautiful. Eden-esque. 

After lunch we played ultimate frisbee. So fun. I was about dead last night.

In Costa Rica it's not illegal to copy movies, so street vendors copy them and sell them for about 2 bucks. I have been buying disney movies in spanish; they help SO much. 

Sunday night in Villa Church, John touched a little bit on expectations. Everyone has come here with some expectation.. whether it be to totally overturn the streets of San Jose or be doing ministry 5 times a week… we've all brought something. So.. now that we're a little under two months in, we're just realizing a lot more that this year is a season of growth for us. We barely know anything. We're still going to have some amazing opportunities to love on people and tell them about Jesus… but the major life changing is going to be within the group.

Internet is about to shut off so I need to wrap this up, but...

Sunday I went to a different church to sing with 3 other girls. A couple of weeks ago they were all singing one night in their room, I heard them… came and joined… and now we always sing songs with four part harmonies. It's awesome. So, this church invited us to sing. We sang "Your Grace is Enough For Me" in English and "I Have Decided to Follow Jesus" in Spanish. It was awesome.. and really cool getting to see another church. I understood more than 5 words this time! I'll try to post a video… IF I can. Love you guys.

Rough update! Sorry!

these past few weeks have been pretty crazy. I'm sorry I haven't been doing a good job of maintaining my blog. I'll try to update you on big events that have occurred first

-One of my roommates, Hannah, left about a little over a week ago. She had made up her mind about three weeks ago that she was going to leave, and we really couldn't do much besides pray and encourage her. It's been really sad, but her absence has really united the rest of the group. 

-I have youth group every other Saturday night from 6 to about 10.. it varies. The second time I went, I asked them if they knew the song "Cuanto Nos Ama" ("How He Loves" in Spanish) and I sang a little for them. Only one of them really knew it, but the next night I get an email from the head worship leader person and he asked me to sing and play the song at youth group in two weeks with them. So I was pumped! … but definitely a little nervous considering I hadn't touched a piano since I had left home and the fact that I could still only make out about 100 spanish words… but YEAH! I was pumped. We had practice the next saturday and at first… it was very rough. hahahahahhahahahaha! I wish I could post a video for you guys to hear my pronunciation. But by the end of the night, we were all really pumped because it was really coming together (AKA I wasn't speaking gibberish) 

So THEN…. that next Wednesday…. My body decided to take on some parasite or something.. I still don't really know what it was, but it's gone now. That took me out for a good 5 days. I was so bummed that I couldn't go to youth group. 

The next Monday was the ziplining excursion, and Sunday night I was still feeling awful. I hadn't eaten hardly anything the entire weekend, but Sunday night the only two things I could imagine stomaching were vegetable soup (mom's vegetable soup) and lasagna… random I know. We had lasagna. I got a couple of bites down, but I still felt really sick. 

We have "Villa Church" on Sunday nights, and I really did not want to miss it. I sat outside while everyone worshiped, and then finally I went in. I listened to the sermon in the back of the room, and then when we worshiped at the end I just felt such a peace in my body. I think I was just too excited about Jesus to worry about the pain. yeah. God's awesome

I ended up going ziplining the next morning. I definitely had a couple of times throughout the day where I thought maybe-this-wasn't-such-a-good-idea, but I did it. God really gave me strength… I mean really. I have never felt so pitiful in my life. Climbing up the mountain was one of the most physically exhausting things I have ever done. I had NO muscle. agh. I did not like that. 

Anyways ziplining was awesome. There were 5 different lines we got to go on; I think the view was more overwhelming than the ride. The place was called Fossil Land.

- This past Saturday my church group ( Derek, Emily L. and Will C. ) and I went to a soccer tournament that a bunch of local churches were holding. I never thought I would say this… but I love soccer. It was so much fun. I mean I STUNK, but it was so much fun. I would consider this past saturday one of my first real confirmations that I am learning some spanish. One of the tico girls in my youth group (her name is Sharon and she is so beautiful) said that my spanish was improving. I don't know how much that means… all I know is that I AM making progress. 

There is also this guy named Alvaro who goes to our church. He drives us around a LOT. He drove us from the Villa, to the tournament, to one of our church friend's houses, to the church, back to the house and then back to the Villa. We've stayed overnight at his house one time. His parents cook GOOOOOD food. There are three kids: Alvaro, Laura y Rita… and they are all so nice to us.. we're trying to think of some way to repay them. 

I had youth group practice later this past saturday, and the song was so much better. They said they want me to learn all of the songs so I can play with them all of the time… So again.. I don't really no what that means yet, but I definitely am becoming a lot closer with this group. The coolest part that night was just going back to Sharon's house and hanging out with everyone. They were teaching me Costa Rican slang, and I was teaching them english words… and more ways to make fun of me. 

One thing that would be really awesome for any of you guys praying is just for the heart of the church I go to. It's called Abundant Life. We've been practicing Cuanto Nos Ama.. and I just really want Holy Spirit to hit this church with His love… like crazy. He's jealous for our affection. yeah. woah

-This past monday we went to hike this mountain that has 3 crosses on it. It was so beautiful. The beginning of the hike was really hard because we were walking at about a 60 degree incline… I'm pretty sure.. I wasn't too good at geometry. All I know is that this hill was STEEP. It was so awesome though. I felt like I was in the garden of Eden when I got to the top. It's just crazy! I mean, if there are places on earth that are that pretty… just imagine what Heaven is going to be like. 

The weather was so amazing all day… until the hike down. It poured. One of the guys on our trip slipped, fell and got a concussion, but he's fine now. He falls a lot. I don't know exactly what he has, but I feel bad because he is one of the most joyful people I've ever met. 

Hmmm let me see what have I left out… 

-We have midterms this week

-OH! Two of the tico staff members here have had family member pass away in the same week. Both of the families have handled the deaths with so much faith. They know they are seeing them again in Heaven, so they are hanging on to that hope. 

-Oh! This happened a while ago, but internet was becoming a huge distraction for pretty much every student here, so the leadership limited internet to….

Tues-Fri: 6-7 AM, 4-6 PM

Saturday: director's choice

Sunday: random times- this is the day that we get the most though

Mondays: none

The past couple weeks have been really tough because everyone is experiencing a lot of spiritual warfare, whether it's through homesickness, doubting salvation, mind battles, dreams etc.    everyone here has experienced some of it. I've come to realize that this semester is mainly about our growth: learning the language, culture and about ourselves. Everyone just has a lot that they are going through, so it is tearing on the rest of the group sometimes. Cleansing can take some time.. and love. Lot's of love. 

internet time is up. I know I didn't update y'all on everything, but I'll blog again soon. I'll try to post some pictures too! Love y'all.